Israeli navy intelligence chief resignation will put friends on the spot | Gaza Information

Haliva additionally referred to as for establishing an investigative committee, in what could be a primary step in the direction of accountability for failures surrounding October 7.

Navy intelligence chief Aharon Haliva has turn into the primary senior Israeli official to resign over failures to forestall the October 7 assault by the Qassam Brigades and different Palestinian armed teams in southern Israel, a transfer anticipated to extend strain on different prime leaders to comply with go well with.

“The intelligence directorate beneath my command didn’t reside as much as the duty we have been entrusted with,” Haliva wrote in a letter addressed to the Israeli military chief and revealed on Monday. “I carry that black day with me ever since, day after day, night time after night time.”

The 57-year-old, a 38-year veteran of the Israeli navy, stated he would depart his publish as soon as a substitute is discovered.

He additionally referred to as for the institution of an investigative committee to find out in an “in-depth, complete and exact method” all circumstances that led to the October 7 assault.

On that day, Hamas’s Qassam Brigades launched a shock assault from Gaza, killing greater than 1,130 folks and taking some 240 captive. The assault on the southern communities is considered Israel’s worst intelligence failure for the reason that nation’s creation in 1948.

Israel responded with a ferocious bombing marketing campaign on Gaza that has thus far killed greater than 34,000 folks and displaced most of its 2.2 million residents. It additionally decreased large swaths of the besieged enclave into rubble and pushed segments of the inhabitants into hunger.

The intelligence institution has come beneath huge scrutiny for failing to see what was approaching October 7.

Israelis wish to know why the navy was discovered unprepared regardless of a reported warning a yr earlier than over a possible assault and why it had diverted sources away from monitoring Gaza.

Israeli navy and intelligence leaders had dismissed a 40-page doc by a senior analyst outlining an assault that turned out to be strikingly much like the one on October 7, in accordance with the New York Instances.

On the time, officers had determined that such an assault was past the armed group’s capabilities.

“One thing is rotten within the kingdom of Israeli intelligence,” stated Yossi Mekelberg, an affiliate fellow on the British think-tank Chatham Home.

A number of senior navy leaders, together with Haliva, took accountability for the October 7 failures. Nonetheless, it was assumed that these busy within the struggle on Gaza could be held accountable as soon as it was over.

Why now?

It isn’t clear what led Halavi to make such a transfer now – with Israel’s assault on Gaza nonetheless ongoing, exchanges of fireplace between Hezbollah and Israel rising, and tensions with Iran at an all-time excessive.

However by deciding to resign, observers say, Halavi despatched a sign that the time for accountability has come.

“Authority comes with accountability,” Haliva wrote in his letter, in what some imagine was a touch, and an invitation, to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“He needed to ship a private message to inform him: ‘If I can do it, you are able to do it’,” says Akiva Eldar, an Israeli creator and former editorial author and columnist for Haaretz.

Netanyahu has refused to acknowledge any blame for the assault and has repeatedly rejected calls to resign.

The intelligence chief’s resignation has added to the strain confronted by a primary minister already accused of not doing sufficient to carry again the greater than 100 captives in Gaza and of dragging the battle out to save lots of his political profession.

“Halavi understood that Netanyahu was not going to finish the struggle within the close to future and that he was not excited about bringing the captives again to Israel,” stated Eldar.

The query is now whether or not different members of the safety and navy institution will comply with in Halavi’s footsteps.

Based on Alion Liel, former chief of the Israeli International Ministry, ought to high-ranking officers such because the heads of the Shin Wager, the southern command forces and the Israeli military chief of workers resign, it will sign to the general public that the time for an investigation has come. It might sign the identical to politicians.

“That is the start of a course of – step one of an extended variety of resignations wanted,” stated Liel.